


(never will) be mine

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff and Angst, Idiots to FWB to Idiots, M/M, commitment issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29845038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hello Kur/Ruf nation, I love you.
Relationships: Kurloz Makara/Rufioh Nitram
Kudos: 5





	(never will) be mine

It’s a tiny thing of an apartment veiled by the facade of a grand hotel that you keep spending your days in.

You’d moved to Spain to study art a year ago. Though your desires expand to more than that. A business and a community and loose ends all tied, to create a space where your canvas meet more souls.

You look at Rufioh Nitram and you’ve found  _ art _ , alright. Can’t for the life of you be much else.

It’s been on and off with this fling-thing the two of you have, but mostly on and you’re starting to feel you’ve accomodated. Made it worth the awkward mutual proposal stage you both navigated after he dropped you a number once during class because he’d needed an escape route in case his group disbanded. It proved to be a good coffee date that sprung forth, he had complimented your sketchbooks even if he felt them to be a tad creepy and he wanted more, so you took it from there.

He called you attractive soon enough and you said that back even in full knowledge that he’d wanted a distraction. Not like you could figure of anyone who’d willingly wanna touch you that wouldn’t hate you so this was a welcome change and possibility. 

It wasn’t really meant to be very exclusivelike at that point in your lives and you agreed, thinking it was a fit.

You wile away more days than you’re proud to admit with him and you’re beginning to get comfortable. Maybe  _ too  _ comfortable.

You get much out of the arrangement even if you barely understand him in the beginning. 

He comes to spend evenings with you and the two of you are oddly in flow. You share some space that isn’t hindering anything after you lay together, share some music and thoughts and it’s enough to laugh about and feel unraveled in a sense. You notice he’s got his own hobbies he likes to stick to, and at least that you motherfucking understand and respect even if the amount of shows he streams is concerning. At least you get to motherfucking Netflix and chill often, and you find it hard to get tired of him physically even when the novelty runs off.

He lets you turn him into something he isn’t sometimes, the first times you touch on him you’ve no obligation to play nice and he lets you grab at him all you want, lets you choke him and use him. He gives you freedom and inspiration to better your creations and you keep coming back to this newfound muse.

You let him borrow your clothes after a while. He’s shorter and they sit on him funny and make your stomach do a quizzical little flip sometimes. He tries the reverse by handing you an edgy vest that fits you like an odd hanging crop top. You suggest it’s alright if a brother wants to borrow your stuff, but he rarely takes you up on that offer, whether because your things are too scary-looking or not his style, you don’t know. 

It’s comfortable, because you come to appreciate the company and you know not to stir up a mess in what ain’t broken.

It isn’t like your arrangement with him is asking you to change fundamentally in any way, and you wouldn’t even if he did. You ain’t willing to divulge much pertaining to your past mistakes with a partner that ended up hospitalized due to neurological issues and a girlfriend you most of the time pretended to love rather than admit it. 

You’ve kept losses you can’t and shouldn’t name and you don’t yet know if he can take to find out how much of your own hand was in them. So you understand when he’s scrolling through social media one day the two of you recklessly wake up, still lodged in and too lazy to disengage for the day.

You understand when a photo of him and a chinese girl pops up and he doesn’t smile anymore, you have to hold his hand tight when he goes thoughtful and he tells you  _ “I knew her, yeah… She changed now.” _ And you don’t press even if you want to. If he doesn’t press for closeness you don’t press.

  
  


He knocks some breath out of you one day, though. 

You’re sitting quietly on the floors in the lecture after hours, on work, and he comes in. You had a booty call arrangement but neither of you really cares for that right now.

He doesn’t make you clean up your mess, doesn’t mind you aren’t getting up to anything today. 

He just stands and looks at you and says  _ “Damn, dog. You’re so chill most of the time. If only everyone in my life was like you it would have been so different.” _

It makes you look up from your paints and pencils and the sparks of golden brown in his eyes make it worth it. He’s looking at you tender and strange and you don’t know what to make of this.

Initially, you refuse to look at it that way because it’s still too fucking soon and you would be a fool to consider. But you’re getting the  _ slightest  _ inkling that you may feel a bit  _ loved _ .

So much so that you’re beginning to have a trace of a desire for a shared future.

After that, somewhere along the lines your doodles turn to homes, though architectural style has never been your forte. It takes you some, but not too long to figure out why.

You try making it known to him gentle as you can muster that if he’d want to and said the words, he’s got you. 

You offer to pay his tuition for next year because you know he mentioned a passing fear of ending up on the streets, that he’d taken risks to be in this place given the costs. You’ve nothing to do more important with your inheritance that isn’t already taken care of either way.

He smiles a bit sheepish, a bit off and timid. He tells you that’d be awesome but he doesn’t really wanna mooch like that. It’s a weight lifted but you don’t think he comprehends your full meaning and you get the impression you’ve sparked in him a cagey feeling.

You try to feel him out then. You test with small gestures, lingering a bit too often after you’re done with passion. You offer massages. You bake for the motherfucker. You hope he appreciates it, and he looks like he does. He touches you back like he doesn’t want it to end, but there’s still this unnerving, evasive and prevalent tint to his hands and the way his lips curve of uncertainty.

He tells you one night, open window of your balcony and the both of you are kinda dazed after staying up way late with jokes and booze. You’d been making fun of some redundant music class asshole that keeps trying to get in on your thing and laughing your assess off lipsynching the motherfucker’s shitty music. 

You have to stop and take some air, and he raises an arm up then and points a hand to the sky and confesses to you he wishes he had more freedom. You wrap arms around his waist and kiss at his neck. You inform him he probably can have it, if he wants to.

_ “I’ve always been too much of a coward. People don’t really see it that way but, I am _ .” is what he says.

‘It’s a choice’, you think. But you don’t argue to ruin this moment of many beyond shaking your head in the negative and holding onto him tighter.

  
  


You should have seen it coming from a mile away.

You wake up and you feel well rested, cozy even after that and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Until you find out he left a note on the bed stand and not much else of him is left in the entire apartment. 

_ “I’m sorry. You were really great but I can’t do this.”  _

It’s so generic you could kill him. Might as well have said it isn’t you, it’s him. You would laugh if it didn’t cut. You feel oh so  _ stupid _ .

You don’t have to call him to know he won’t answer. You can tell he’ll probably go back to the farmland his family owns, most likely at the insistent requests of that one overbearing guy who couldn’t let him go. You’re not one to say, when it’s increasingly obvious you haven’t ever been able to let go of anything nor anyone for certain in your life. 

You’re going to have to go back to the monochrome empty nothings now, strike colorful threads of vicious lines to cover up the works he’s been the subject of.

On some level, you expected it. You should have known it maybe, maybe if you hadn’t pushed too soon.

You’re furious with him. There won’t be so much as a call from him ever again, you already know. You’re  _ livid _ .

Behind your eyelids flash the bright stars of yesterday and his words from before. ‘ _ Too much of a coward _ ’ his voice and fear is still clear to you. You put the note down and your own fingers come up to meet the window for no particular reason, in the image of that time.

_ “You could have always chosen not to be.” _ You bite small words, to nobody in particular in the empty hotel room.

Your disposition and your posture fall flat in synch and yet you know in time you will come to accept this, too. 

You go pack your belongings.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Kur/Ruf nation, I love you.


End file.
